Study: MiraCosta teachers and staff members highest paid in nation

OCEANSIDE -- Full-time teachers at MiraCosta College make more
on average than teachers at any community college in the nation,
according to research published this summer by the National
Education Association.

The association, a union that represents 2.7 million educators,
from elementary teachers to college faculty and administrators,
ranked colleges based on salaries for the 2002-2003 school year,
the last year for which data were available.

In 2003, the average full-time teacher's salary annually at
MiraCosta was $98,611, while academic administrators averaged
$160,172 and classified support staffers averaged $53,003. In
comparison, full-time teachers at Palomar College in San Marcos
averaged $68,383, administrators averaged $105,250, and support
staffers averaged $37,542.

Jonathan Cole, president of MiraCosta's academic senate and a
physics professor at the college for two decades, described the
association's rankings as an eye-opener.

"I was shocked when we showed up on the 'Top Ten' list," Cole
said last week. "We knew we were the best-paid community college in
the state. We didn't know it was in the nation until we saw that
list."

At MiraCosta, full-time professor and administrator salaries
also have ranked No. 1 in California since at least 2000, the
earliest year for which the California Community College
Chancellor's office provides ranking data.

The climb in salaries started in 1998. That year, faced with
several years of stagnant budgets, faculty and staff members agreed
to peg salary increases to the rise and fall in the community
college district's annual property tax revenue. If property taxes
went up by 10 percent, so did full-time faculty salaries.

"That was a sort of a leap of faith for the faculty and staff,"
Cole said. "We were willing to take the risk of salaries going up
when times are good and going down when times are bad."

Starting in 1999, MiraCosta's property tax revenue grew by
double digits every year, resulting in raises for faculty members
of 9.8 percent in fiscal 2000, 12 percent in 2001, 10 percent in
2002 and 10 percent in 2003. Administrators and full-time,
nonteaching staff received similar raises.

According to data on file with the California Community College
Chancellor's Office, average wages for full-time teachers at
MiraCosta increased 25 percent from the 2000 to 2003 school
years.

Chancellor's office data also showed that support staff members
and academic administrators saw 30 percent pay jumps in the same
period. Administrators who oversee support staff saw even larger
increases.

What did they do about it?

Earlier this year, MiraCosta's faculty and staff members agreed
to new contracts linking their raises to the Consumer Price Index
for the next three years instead of property tax revenues.

Under the new contract, full-time employees will receive only a
4.2 percent salary increase this year, compared with the 9 percent
to 11 percent they could have expected if their raises were still
linked to tax revenues.